Terps recruit Trayvon Reed to spend senior year at private school in New Jersey

The stepfather of Maryland basketball recruit Trayvon Reed said Tuesday that his son’s move from the Atlanta suburbs to a Christian-based private school in New Jersey was based largely on getting the 7-1 center into the kind of academic environment that would allow him to be eligible to play as a freshman in 2014-15.

Reed, who is considered one of the top high school centers in the country and is rated as high as No. 6 at his position nationally, enrolled Monday at the Life Center Academy in Burlington, N.J. Daniel Moore said his son had initially planned to go to a school in Indiana, but the family learned last week that the school didn’t have room for him.

“I was a little late getting that together," Moore said. "I just wanted to put him in a place where he could get the [academic] attention that he needed, and he could stay focused, work hard and be eligible to play next year. It wasn’t all about him going to a certain play to play basketball."

But Moore said he knows that Reed, who weighs only 215 pounds, will also benefit from playing for Pervis Ellison, the former Louisville star and NBA standout who is in his second year coaching at Life Center Academy. Ellison’s daughter, Aja, plays at the school and has committed to playing at Maryland.

“Pervis is a great guy. He was a first-round draft pick [of the Sacramento Kings Washington Bullets], he was a big guy who I watched,” Moore said of Ellison, who as a 6-foot-9, 205-pound freshman led the Cardinals to a national championship over Duke in 1986. “He was a great player himself. I talked with him on the phone and he seems like a genuine guy who wants to help kids. I just felt comfortable with him and the school.”

Moore said he was also pleased that the school is a Christian-based school.